front entryway revamp

11 May

Sorry my posting is still sporadic, and so is our work on the house…Since my last post I’ve been shooting a bunch of fun weddings and portrait sessions, traveling to St. Louis (for a wedding) and Chicago (for a fun little weekend family getaway), and in the meantime awaiting closing on the Agave house which was pushed to sometime next week (hopefully). The buyers are awesome and it seems to be the perfect house for them (and their pups!). I’ll miss that house, it’s pretty great if I do say so myself. But, I will not miss being a landlord! We took one last dip in the amazing pool last weekend after we moved out our staging accessories and furniture. Isn’t Zoey a cute little  grumpy bikini baby?!

And here is a Iphone shot of me and my girl hanging out earlier this week…

So, we’ve started working on getting some bids for some work to the downstairs den/master bedroom. Our first goal is to get rid of the popcorn ceiling! We are also thinking of smoothing all of the walls down there so they match the smooth walls of the upstairs areas of the house that we gutted a few years back and had re-drywalled. We also want to install a few can lights down there (it’s dark and basement-y now) and  then put in new laminate flooring. Then finishing the bar will be the grand finale…We’re still a ways off from that and since everything we do takes a REALLY long time I can pretty much double my goal time, but one day…I need to take some current photos of those areas, it’s looking a little lonely down there because the buyers for the Agave house ended up buying a lot of our staging furniture. Which is fine by me, gives me an excuse to eventually buy more furniture (I have a problem). But for the meantime, it’s really empty downstairs. The easier to move stuff out to do the electrical and drywall work I guess…Here is a photo of the downstairs den before we moved a bunch of furniture out for staging.

We’ve done a few little projects lately. Now that we a bunch of our accessories back from the Agave house staging, we had to put them back in place and of course I decided to move stuff around. We’ve had this shelving system in our entry for a long time, but I’ve always wanted a credenza of sorts there instead (for hidden storage), with some nice art above. We are halfway there – still need to find the perfect art for above it.

So, out went the shelving (into the garage for now until we decide where it’s permanent home will be) and in came the credenza that used to be downstairs…

BEFORE

AFTER

the little ceramic tray on the far right is vintage and holds our keys and sunglasses. the book in the middle is our super cool wedding album! the lamp is vintage as well. Up next, some art for that wall!

 

 

 

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look what we did this weekend :)

24 Apr

On Sunday Mike and I were both in the mood to do a little home improvement. But, lacking the motivation to accomplish any of the larger items on our very long “punch list”, we decided to demo the bar top! I had mixed feelings about getting rid of the vintage tile, but up close it’s in pretty bad shape and the bar top itself is pretty gross. I’m excited to modernize our little wet bar and maybe finally use it!  I had a major aversion to this area once we finished our kitchen remodel that took over a year – we used this little bar as our kitchen for that long and I hated every minute of that. So, after we finished the kitchen I stayed as far away from it for quite a while. But, I’m ready to get back to it. So, we started small – Mike disconnected the plumbing and we were able to pull off the backsplash and bar top in two solid pieces. With demo, I’m always the impatient one – I like to just start banging stuff and breaking it out – but Mike likes to think things thru a bit more. Which in this case was a good thing. So, here is where we started:

excuse the crappy phone pics below – I was too lazy to get out my ‘real’ camera :)

So, our plan from here is as follows:

  • Mike is going to attempt to make a concrete countertop
  • New modern sink. I love this one from Overstock, and it’s really reasonably priced:

 

  • New modern faucet to go with our awesome sink.
  • Repaint the cabinet with a fresh coat of paint, and add new pulls.
  • Tile backsplash (I plan to reuse some leftover tile from past remodeling projects, but I haven’t decided which yet)

So, it’s a start! We’re excited to make this a really cool wet bar!

 

 

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our next little project

12 Apr

You’ll have to forgive me as my posts will likely be a little sporadic for the next few months – we are getting back into wedding season which means I am busy, busy, busy. And, we’ll also be traveling to St. Louis/Chicago soon (I’m shooting a wedding in St. Louis and Mike and Zoey are coming along so we can have a little family trip after – taking a train to Chicago!).

But, coming up soon with a little of my free time I want to work on this chair – I got it for $40 on CL a few months back and it’s the perfect little chair for the corner of our bedroom.

It totally reminds me of the West Elm modern windsor chair:

However, I’m thinking it needs a little makeover. I’m not in love with the warm toned paisley fabric (I’m thinking something mid century similar to what I did with the dining chairs) and I’m also thinking of painting it white (though Mike and I are at odds about that, he says keep it wood). What do you all think? White or no? Fun fabric? It seems premature to be working on a chair for our master bedroom when it really needs an overall makeover, but that will be coming soon (hopefully end of May after we close on the Agave house).

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Mid century chair revamp

2 Apr

I’ve been MIA these last few weeks – we’ve been super busy with life in general and it likely isn’t slowing down soon! As a result, we also haven’t really done anything here at the Brady Bunch casa, but we hope to start up again with some projects once we have the time and the money (hopefully in a few months). I wanted to share the before and after photos of the mid century chairs I bought for staging at the Agave house (which by the way has a contract(contingent on their home sale) on it, yay!). I found these chairs on Craigslist for a steal and while I love the lines of the chairs, the dated 80′s upholstery definitely needed to be ditched.Image 

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So, I went on the search for a suitable fabric. I wanted something bold, fun, and maybe with a mid century feel. While looking at Fanny’s Fabrics (which if you’re in Austin is a great boutique source for modern, unique fabrics) I came across THE fabric and I knew it was the one. So, I bought the fabric (2 yards which later I was told barely worked for all 6 chairs) and took them to my favorite local upholsterer (Cardenas Upholstery). I love the end result. I love them so much I want to keep them. But, I can’t because I don’t need them or have room for them. So I’ll likely sell them on Craigslist once we get closer to the closing date for the house sale. Here is the finished product!

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I will say I thought about reupholstering them myself to save a little money, and I likely could have done so. But, Cardenas only charged about $20/chair to upholster them and I wanted to keep the cording on the bottom of the chair and I knew that wasn’t something I could handle on my own. So glad I did, I think the edging really finishes them off! I love the way they turned out, and I especially love the way they contrast with the white lacquered West Elm dining table!

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house tour: stacy and adam’s modern anthropologie

21 Mar

In honor of my friend Stacy (who is getting married on Saturday!!) I thought I would post her house tour today. I actually photographed Stacy’s house last summer as part of my application for a little blogging gig on Apartment Therapy. Well, I didn’t get the gig, but I still wanted to share the pics and some details about Stacy’s super cute house!

Stacy & Adam’s Modern Anthropologie

Park Forest neighborhood in Austin, Texas

Size: 958 square feet

Years lived in: 7

Stacy, a photographer in Austin, Texas, fell in love with her quaint home seven years ago. It is located in Park Forest, which is a desirable, up and coming neighborhood in Central South Austin. Leaking plumbing in her only bathroom a few years ago prompted her into a small remodel where she ripped out all of the old asbestos tile, carpeting and linoleum throughout her home and refinished the concrete floors, redid the kitchen with new IKEA cabinets, concrete countertops and glass tile backsplash, and remodeled her bathroom, among other things. Now, Stacy and Adam love living in their home with their three pups and are planning a master suite addition in the next few years.

Our Style: Anthropologie and lots of collected and vintage finds mixed with some modern with a muted color palette.

Inspiration: I have always loved vintage things and I have been collecting for years. It was all mismatched and never worked but I read an article by a designer who said to just buy it if you love it and it will work in some how eventually. I kept doing that and trading furniture out until it finally worked!

Favorite Element: That’s hard! I have a lot of little things I love. One piece that has been with me the longest is a glass table top with chrome bottom that was given to me by my grandmother. I loved it at her house so much growing up. I have had it since high school and it is one of the things that I never got rid of, probably because it’s sentimental.

Biggest Challenge: Making it work. I just got it right after about 20 years, although it still needs some work.  My other challenge is keeping it clean with three dogs and a cat!

What Friends Say: That it is very me. Some people walk in and say it looks like Anthropologie which I will happily take! I call it classy-ed up me maw.

Biggest Embarrassment: The damage the dogs have done! There are some things that need replacing or fixing but that is what you get when you have three rescues. They own as much of the house as we do it seems. And the curtains – I still need to get the right ones!

Proudest DIY: I didn’t really do too much except shop! I had the main work done when I moved out for awhile for our small remodel. Then I just put all the pieces back together and arranged. I am happy that I did that.

Biggest Indulgence: My stained concrete floors and countertop! I had asbestos tile, carpet, and linoleum throughout the house when I bought it. It was all ripped out and we had the floors stained – they have a unique tile looking effect from the old asbestos tiles, but I feel like that is what made the look a little more modern.

Best Advice: Like that designer said (and I forget who it was) just buy things you love and it will work out. Maybe not overnight but you’ll get there…all those little things for me are what make it home.

Dream Source: Anthropologie and antique shops

WHERE SHE GOT IT

LIVING ROOM

Sofa: Anthropologie

Side Table (metal and glass): Vintage, passed down from grandmother

Lamp: Aviary, Austin

Art above Sofa and art above dining table: Original photograph by Stacy Sodolak, homeowner

KITCHEN AND DINING ROOM

Dining Table:  NEST, Austin

Dining Chairs: IKEA

Cabinets: IKEA

Backsplash Tile: Glass tile from Susan Jablon Mosaics

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organizing and digitizing

12 Mar

One of my goals for the next few months is organizing! We’ve put off our downstairs redo for a bit (until we sell the AGAVE house) so for now we are trying to make our own house a little cleaner and we are getting rid of stuff we don’t use. Last weekend we organized the garage, and I really really wish I had taken and before and after photo because the difference is amazing. But since I didn’t, for the “before” imagine any hoarders garage. That would be us. The after is so much more useable.

Also, on my list of tasks for organizing was to get rid of extra paperwork that I didn’t need. I’ve had an entire drawer in our mid century credenza that was dedicated to holding receipts, samples, magazine clippings, wallpaper samples, etc. You name it, it was probably in there. So, I went thru that drawer and thru all of my magazine clippings and scanned and digitized them finally! So, I wanted to share them here – just some snippets from magazines that I loved for one reason or another…

Love this galvanized metal sliding door. Would be perfect for a kids area…

I love any Jonathan Adler design.

Love the mix of traditional and modern in this room.

I definitely have a thing for yellow doors.

Love this color palette. It feels so mid century modern.

Love this color combo also – chartreuse and peacock blue.

I wouldn’t mind some drapes like this.

This is a great little bathroom.

Another great bathroom, love the wall of tile.

If I was brave enough to do colored kitchen cabinets I think they would be this color.

the AGAVE house staged (by moi!)

1 Mar

First of all, I realized this morning that we were nominated for the Apartment Therapy “The Homies” blog awards in the “Best Home Design Blog” category! Thanks to whoever nominated us – I realize we have no chance against some of those amazing (and regularly updated I might add :) ) blogs like Retro Renovation and Making it Lovely (which I read regularly) but it’s still really nice that someone took the time to nominate us! And who knew there were so many design blogs?!

If you’d like to vote for us, that would be so cool! We have not a chance of winning, but it’d still be fun to see our name creep up a little higher on the list. So to vote, click here, scroll all the way down to register or login, and then do a “find” function search for us and vote!

Also, I wanted to share the final results of our staging and “sprucing up” efforts on the AGAVE house. This is a home that I have owned for over 4 years (lived in for about 2 years, and rented out for about 2 years). My husband and I have decided that we really don’t want to be landlords anymore, so we are selling it. However, in order to sell it in this market it really needed to be staged. But, we were already planning to spend money on touching up drywall, paint, and landscaping so there was no room in the budget for staging fees. With that, we decided to stage it ourselves with furniture and accessories from our home now.  There’s more backstory on that here.

So, I spent about 2 weeks bringing over small carloads of accessories and smaller furniture for the house, and I did a photography trade with some movers to have them move over the big stuff. Almost everything we brought over to the house was existing from our house, with the exception of the dining table and chairs (table was purchased on super clearance from West Elm (“$130!!) and the chairs were a Craigslist find that I had reupholstered – but more on that in another post soon).

Without further delay, here are some before and after photos!

And a few more photos (all afters)

I think this is my favorite vignette in the whole house.

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And that’s all! It’s staged and on the market! If you’d like to see the virtual tour that was put together by our realtors, click here. It’s actually really cool – click on the “style designer” feature and you can change wall colors, countertop materials, etc!

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